Arms Race Evolutionary Dynamics

Coevolutionary arms races between prey defense and predator offense — the Red Queen hypothesis. Populations evolve in trait space; a mutation in one species drives selection in the other.

0.15
0.12
1.00
1.50
60
Mean Prey Trait
Mean Pred Trait
Trait Gap
0
Generation
Red Queen hypothesis (Van Valen 1973): Organisms must constantly evolve just to maintain fitness relative to co-evolving adversaries. Formalized by matching allele models and Hamiltonian dynamics in trait space.

Model: Prey have defense trait d, predators have offense trait a. Prey fitness ∝ max(0, d−a); predator fitness ∝ max(0, a−d). Each generation, selection + mutation shifts trait distributions. The system evolves forever — there is no stable equilibrium.